G-burg Fun.

Hi friends. We just rolled into town yesterday from a week long vacation, and I thought I would write a little something before I make myself unpack my suitcase. Do y'all ever do that? Leave clothes in your suitcase for a few days until you can muster the patience and energy to put them away, wash, sort, etc.? My max is about three days. I think Matthew's grand total might be somewhere around two weeks. I should just put his away for him, but then I'd have to sniff everything to see what's clean or not, and I'd rather leave that job up to him. Anyway, this post is about the aquarium. We went a few weeks ago. My sil Leah gave us passes as a gift, and we wanted to use them when we thought Eli might possibly enjoy it. And he did!

I love his little finger pointing like his daddy's here.

Now, he probably would enjoy it even more when he can ask a billion questions about everything, but he loved seeing the fish swimming, and he loved seeing all the other kids there. I think his attention span though, was about one minute per exhibit, so there wasn't a lot of reading the signs that adults find interesting.

Here's the little wild man on his tiptoes sans shoes peering at the sting rays. His shoes kept falling off, so we gave up and let him run around like a proper southern baby.

 Proof I was there too! I think I might need to give another mini-tutorial on focusing the camera. Eli and I are forever blurry. Oh, and I got my hair cut. This is actually it grown out after two months. I probably had about 6 inches cut off, and I like it. For now.

Whoops. Looks like I might need to teach myself how to focus again too. Did I mention taking pictures in dark aquariums is HARD? It gives me an appreciation for weddings photogs who get great pictures at night. That ISO and dark don't do well with me yet. I gave up after awhile and used the big ole' ugly flash. We're in the underground tunnel here. Sharks swam over us, and Eli just stared and stared. Well, for a whole minute he did, and that's about as long as he does anything these days.

 Trying to touch the horseshoe crabs here. His little arms couldn't reach them too well, and this is his little unsure of something face.

 Eli the scuba diver. We waited in line for about five minutes for this guy, while four adults got their pictures taken in it first. I wish Matth had told me to get his shoulders a little lower. I didn't do too realistic of a job. :)

big scary japanese spider crab.

Penguins! Here we are at the end of our journey. It was definitely a fun family outing for the day. We will probably wait to take Eli until at least another year, when he can communicate and knows his fish names a little better. :) After this we ended up walking around downtown Gatlinburg, and almost were convinced into buying an airbrush t-shirt, some fudge, or even a set of throwing knives. If you have never been to G-burg and have no idea what I'm talking about, you are really missing out on a great shopping experience! :)